Kirsten Zastrow was nearly killed by her smartphone.
On the evening of March 19, Zastrow had plugged in her Nexus S phone for the night and laid it down on her end table, the alarm set, before turning in on the couch. She had moved to the couch from her bed because she had just adopted two cats, and they had decided to turn the bedroom into their nocturnal playground.
About two hours later, Zastrow was jarred awake by a loud crack. She could smell something burning.
She sat up and saw a small fire on the floor, just inches from where her head was moments earlier. The flames were already about a foot high.
Barely awake, Zastrow says her instincts told her to blow the fire out, which she somehow succeeded doing without setting the rest of the room on fire. With the fire out, she could turn her attention to the apparent culprit: Her now-destroyed phone, which was scattered in pieces around the room.
At the center of where the flames used to be was her phone's battery
At the center of where the flames used to be was her phone's battery, whose inner parts had now uncoiled.
"It's kind of terrifying to think about what could have happened if I wasn't in the room," Zastrow told Mashable via email, "or if the battery had landed on me instead of the floor."
Zastrow was not using the battery she got when she first purchased the Nexus S phone just under two years ago. The battery in the phone that night was made by a third party, Anker. Anker is a California-based company founded in 2009 that makes, among other things, batteries for several different phones and laptops. Anker's batteries tend to cost significantly less than replacements straight from the manufacturer.
The Case of the Self-Destructing Battery
Like any electronics company looking to minimize costs, Anker makes its batteries in Asia. Anker's Facebook page says it has "top-tier" design and engineering experts (including former Google employees) and that it pairs Silicon Valley design standards with Asian manufacturing expertise to create "best-in-class products."
That description would probably sync up with almost any tech company based in Silicon Valley that makes some kind of hardware, including major firms like Appleand Hewlett-Packard. However, one thing that big companies can do that little ones can't is put more resources toward oversight of offshore manufacturing.
An Anker spokesperson told Mashable that the company was working with Zastrow to investigate the explosion, and there is so far nothing conclusive that indicates the battery was responsible for the fire. However, catastrophic damage of this nature in electronics is almost always battery-related — as was the case in 2006 when several Dell laptops using a particular model of Sony battery caught fire. Those batteries were eventually recalled.
After she posted a photo of the mangled battery on Reddit, Zastrow's post got more than 600 comments. Many of the commenters defended Anker, saying it was "the best" of third-party battery makers, that the brand "isn't bad," and that its batteries tend to have a longer lifespan than the originals. However, one commenter said an Anker cellphone battery he'd purchased swelled up (although it didn't explode).
There have been other cases of users reporting Anker batteries exploding
There have been other cases of users reporting Anker batteries exploding, such asthis Amazon review from 2011 and a developer forum post from 2008. It's all anecdotal evidence, but for extreme cases like explosions, that's often the only evidence available. And since the Great Dell Flare-Up of 2006, reports of battery explosions from major manufacturers have become almost nonexistent.
"Sony and others have improved manufacturing procedures," says Isidor Buchmann, CEO of Cadex Electronics, a manufacturer of battery-testing equipment. "With third-party batteries, the likelihood of a battery failing would be much greater. I was just in China last month, talking to their military, and there was concern even there to buy cells that are made made in China by a third party. It's a quality issue."
Anatomy of an Explosion
To understand what may have gone wrong in Zastrow's battery to cause an explosion, you have to examine how the lithium-ion batteries in most electronics work. Every battery has positive and negative plates, with a separator in between. In today's batteries, made for smaller and smaller gadgets, that separator is often very thin. If anything metallic gets in between the separator, it can cause a short circuit. If that happens, things can get very hot very quickly.
Lithium-ion batteries are particularly vulnerable to this problem, because metallic lithium tends to form in between the plates when the battery is overcharged — that is, if it keeps charging beyond 100% (incidentally, this appears to be the battery problem with Boeing's Dreamliner). However, all electronics have safeties to prevent overcharging, so it's a highly unlikely culprit.
Buchmann suspects the Anker case is similar to the Sony battery explosions from 2006
Buchmann suspects the Anker case is similar to the Sony battery explosions from 2006 in that it probably simply comes down to quality control, and some impurities slipping through in a few units.
"If something crept in that's metallic, a short could occur between the two plates. It may be so small that it's unnoticeable, but eventually a little bit of warmth, heat or vibration could make it worse. It's almost like leakage in a water dam. It works itself open and then the dam breaks."
Anker told Mashable via email that it would correct any flaws in its processes — and even issue a recall — if it turns out the battery was responsible for the explosion.
"We take customer safety very seriously because it affects our reputation as a third-party battery brand — and frankly because it's the right thing to do," wrote Caroline Strum from Anker's marketing department.
As for Zastrow, she just hopes to be compensated for the damage, and to raise awareness about potential safety risks in using third-party batteries. She's already switched to a Nexus 4, so she's not swearing off smartphones, Android or Google — just cloned batteries.
"This is the first Anker battery I've purchased," she says. "I take good care of my electronics. The phone wasn't exposed to extreme heat or cold, and rarely dropped. I had no idea this was something that could happen."
What's your take on third-party batteries? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Images courtesy of Kirsten Zastrow
Ref:mashable
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